The Call of Adventure
by Panny Pancake
Summary: When world famous adventurer Aradia Megido set out to follow in her idol's footsteps, she didn't expect to meet his granddaughter. (Jade/Aradia redrom, AU)


With the way intergalactic travel had become so publicly accessible, it could hardly be said that adventuring was a trade lacking in eager new participants. There was no shortage of unexplored worlds, most of them uninhabitable and even more of them uninhabited. As far as careers went, it was fairly exciting. It was also pretty dangerous.

It was even more so rather lucrative.

So there would always be plenty of would-be adventures. People who still did it for the mere love of the craft, on the other hand, were something of a dying breed.

World famous adventurer Aradia Megido was one such person. She was world famous in the sense that she was famous on one particular world - Alternia, her birth planet, which was considered kind of backwaters these days. Monarchies and warrior races had been considered somewhat passe ever since the institution of the Federation, but trolls tended to be fairly set in their ways.

In the larger scheme of things, Aradia was basically unknown, which frankly suited her just fine. She imagined it would be much harder to get that genuine adventuring atmosphere when reporters were following you around for the chance to be the first to sell a story about your latest exploits. No, she was much happier being some silly girl who went to the places that there was no reason for anyone to go. For example, at this point in time she was on her way to the coordinates of a theorized habitable, but undiscovered planet, all missions regarding which had been abandoned a decade before she was born.

One of the last official expeditions in search of this planet had been headed by a man named Jake English. Mr. English in some of the last logs he ever recorded claimed to have actually _found_ this planet after being ejected in an escape pod during a ship malfunction. But since he never returned from his journey and ceased all communication with mission control shortly after, when no one else proved successful it became easy to dismiss his claims as senile ramblings. Even in his youth Jake English had been considered something of an odd duck – well liked, but probably a better drinking buddy than a ship captain. It came as no surprise to anybody that he wasn't any more reliable in old age.

The official documents that declared him MIA were on the record as calling him "a weird old coot" and were filed with an attached classified ad stating that there was an eclectic collection of art of blue women available free to anyone who could arrange their own pick up.

Jake English was Aradia's personal hero.

In general, there weren't many books about adventuring for a young troll to read – the Alternian government was a little paranoid that their subjects might become too open-minded if they were exposed too early to knowledge of other planets. Jake English's transcribed memoirs were one of the few exceptions, having been ruled to be so outlandish and incoherent as to be no real threat to Condescension-approved propaganda. As a wriggler, Aradia had consumed these stories with relish (not literally, though it was well known that wrigglers were voracious eaters).

And so it was that Aradia Megido, having become a capable adventurer in her own right, would set out to replicate her hero's final journey in a one-sentient-being vessel. Forgoing a crew and mission control really didn't bother her that much - it only contributed to the atmosphere, after all.

She would become one of only two people other than Jake English to ever set foot on the legendary planet.

* * *

It was probably a good thing that Aradia didn't care much for making marketable stories because if she had, she might have been disappointed by how her's played out. Conventional pacing dictated that any fateful meetings should have occurred a good few chapters into the narrative, typically after she had had some time to explore the planet and establish the mystery of the setting for the reader. Probably it would have happened after a series of suspicious mishaps in some temple, which would really have no place being on an uninhabited planet and which would also be really rude to just wander into (Aradia would probably have done it anyway since curiosity was likely to win out over propriety, so it's probably for the best that no such temple existed and that the entire thing is completely off topic).

Jade Harley was waiting for Aradia Megido when she got off her ship.

"I wasn't really sure when to expect you, so the tea hasn't finished steeping yet, sorry. It should be ready pretty soon, though." Jade was a firm believer that a life of solitude was no excuse for a lack of hospitality.

Contrary to Jade's statement, the tea was ready to pour when they arrived at the large towering building that Jade called home (which rather stuck out like a sore thumb, being the only visibly unnatural part of the geography). Not that Jade particularly minded - she'd much rather have apologized unnecessarily than risk being rude to the only guest she'd ever had.

Of course, as nice as it would be to entertain the fanciful pastime of idle chitchat, it really was important that they get right down to business.

"To answer your first question, I have this really cool telescope that - well, I invented it. I don't really have time to explain how it works, but the important thing is that I saw you coming through it.

"To answer your second question, you've been kind of gaping at me ever since I met you outside your ship, so it was kind of obvious.

"To answer your third question, this planet seems to exist on some sort of border between dimensions. People generally don't find it because it winks in and out of existence - or, to be accurate, it leaves the universe you came from and goes somewhere else. I'm talking kind of fast here because there's not really a lot of time - I'm guessing that you have maybe an hour until the window of opportunity closes, but I could be off and I don't know when we'll be in your universe again. So not to rush you out the door, but you should probably drink your tea pretty quickly and then do whatever you came to do.

"To answer your fourth question, I'm a really good guesser."

Aradia was silent for a moment, looking a little stunned from the sudden onslaught of information, but soon recovered. "Well, you got that a little out of order. I actually wanted to ask who you were, for one thing."

"Oh!" Jade blushed a little, feeling embarrassed. She'd tried so hard to get it right, too. "Well, hi, I'm Jade."

"Hi, Jade. I'm Aradia, nice to meet you." Aradia's smile completely lacked the condemnation Jade was half expecting for her oversight. "I'm sorry that I haven't been more socially graceful myself, I just wasn't expecting to meet anyone like that. You wouldn't by any chance happen to know Jake English, would you?"

"Of course! He's my grandfather. Oh, but if you want to meet him, I'm afraid he went off-planet awhile ago and obviously it's kind of hard to know when he'll turn up again. I'm really sorry if that's what you came all this way for."

"Well, it would have been nice, but I wasn't really expecting to meet him anyway. By the way, I didn't know that Mr. English had any children?"

"Oh, he doesn't." Jade paused for a moment, making a face before continuing. "Well, _technically_ I suppose that I'm his daughter, but when your kid's born in a tube of goo, I think it's fair to say that you can be whatever you want to them and at that point he was already kind of old."

"A...tube of goo?"

"A friend of my grandpa's invented this sort of cloning method that isn't quite cloning called ectobiology. I could probably demonstrate how it works for you, but we probably won't get anything as complicated as a whole new human being out of it if we're just playing around. But yeah, I know it probably sounds really strange, but I was basically made out of genetic data contained in ghost slime."

Aradia shrugged. "It's not that weird. Trolls get a few side-eyes over the whole 'incestuous slurry' method of reproduction, so I don't think I'm in any place to judge."

"I really don't know much about trolls," Jade admitted, leaning forward a little, "Would you mind explaining? If that's not inappropriate, of course. Oh, and if I'm not going to keep you from leaving in time!"

"I'll tell you what, I'll answer your question if you answer one more of mine," Aradia offered, voice casual, but eyes shining, "Would you mind if I missed my flight and hung out here a while longer?"

* * *

Jade, as it turned out, was a really great person to have around when visiting a mysterious, dimension-traveling planet. She had done an astounding amount of research on the local flora, knew all the best places to go exploring, and had invented some amazing technology to cope with the planet's odd trans-dimensional residency. She was also pretty fun to hang out with.

However, the longer Aradia hung around, the more antsy she became about her own lack of progress. Sure, she'd done something incredible in just finding this planet and thorough exploration of new worlds was a key part of adventuring, but now she knew that there were whole new dimensions of planets that she'd never even heard of. Eventually, she couldn't bring herself to stay in one place anymore. But moving on proved somewhat harder than it had been previously.

"Come with me," she insisted, "Jade, you're amazing and I need you. Think of everything we could discover together."

"I'd like to, really Aradia." Jade fidgeted with her hands. "My grandpa could come back at any time and I should be here when he does. I mean, he's pretty old and I'm basically all he has."

"Being old hasn't stopped him from venturing out in a spaceship without your help. Besides, why should he get to go on all these adventures and not you?"

"Well, that's true, I guess."

Eventually, with enough cajoling Aradia was able to convince Jade to accompany her. In all honesty, it really wasn't as difficult as it could have been - probably because Jade really did want to be convinced. A girl can only see the same breathtaking sights so often before they start to leave her only mildly winded, after all.

So when Aradia's shuttle launched into an unfamiliar sky, Jade was in the chair next to her, well within reach and more than willing to hold hands on the way up. Aradia squeezed once, full of reassurance and maybe something else.

Aradia and Jade passed through a world of stars and into the beckoning unknown.


End file.
